Rebecca Corn

Despite the famous slogan "I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS" - the coalition government's next target is the NHS. 50,000 job cuts have already been announced, and more are still to come. The overall vision, under a banner of 'choice', is to privatise the service completely. Whilst giving 'control to GPs' the health authorities will be run by private companies - the NHS itself will be reduced to competing, privately managed, 'service providers'. 

It's true that the NHS is struggling. The 'failing NHS' is an emotive political football, because a lot of people are not being adequately treated by the NHS, and we all have heart breaking stories of people, families, communities let down by closures and political tug-of-war. But why did this happen? When did it start to go wrong? Two decades of liberalisation ideas have all but destroyed what was once the envy of the western world. The current proposals are almost carbon copies of the Thatcherism that began to pull apart the NHS to start with. The organisation has endured "There Is No Alternative" economic liberalisation once already.

Despite coalition pledges to stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS - the Health and Social Care Bill is more of the same, and will hack apart the service irrevocably. We know something needs to be done. But we wont be manipulated into support for a flawed reality. How would privatisation genuinely hope to reach all those that really need care? Perhaps a handful of the 'worthy poor' would be lucky recipients of corporate philanthropy - but how many of the marginalised and excluded would end up being failed because of not being able to prove themselves needy enough, in the right way, at the right time. The choice argument is all about the idea that the free hand of the market will regulate; the Adam Smith 'Theory of Moral Sentiments'. The problem though, is that when you are in the grips of something and need care - the meddling hand of the market just simply gets in the way. Choice is not actually relevant at that point, for a lot of people. The most vulnerable, who can't travel, can't choose - just need whatever the service is to be available at whatever is their local hospital, just need the service to be there. Because if at that point you need to choose, it's too late. The health service just doesn't work in that theoretical framework.

The blame game is what gets into the news, and feeds the political game, which in turn continues to spiral into ever more damaging rhetoric. Before we know it, we're talking about closing our borders to 'health tourists', and using other such socially venomous language.

'Giving GPs Control' is a nice headline, but it hides the reality that sits behind that headline, which is privatisation. As a population we understand what is happening here, we recognise this right wing policy that will benefit the corporates, the well off, and the healthy, and exclude everyone else. We won't vilify the NHS for failures that are the result of decades of inadequate support, and we won't support a coalition that is proposing a policy of complete abandonment. We know this Tory logic, and we disagree with it. This is why the Conservative Party did not achieve a majority at the General Election. This is why so many marched on the 26th March, and why so many continue to campaign against this minority lunacy.

The First Chairbourne Division of the Armchair Army, most of us having benefited in some way from the service that the NHS provides, is standing up virtually to fight for it. Today the Health and Social Care Bill was delayed amid 'concerns'. Tomorrow we hope to push it into reverse.

We hope that you will join us for the Armchair Army march on parliament. April 5th, online. See you there.

Save the NHS

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187174024659025

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/nhs

Saturday 26th March 2011 at 18:38

I took a step for an alternative today, I joined the march against irresponsible, ideological, damaging, cuts to the social fabric of our society - and I didn't leave my armchair. I couldn't in fact, because I'm suffering from a debilitating auto-immune condition which makes me the ‘one in ten’, one of the 1.3 million disabled people in the UK.
 
But I am angry and I will not let this get in the way of my voice being heard. I joined the First Chair-bourne Division of the Armchair Army and I am spending my day on a virtual march of e-campaigning - in solidarity, realising a vision of empowerment, part of the growing movement demanding reversal of this policy.
 
I am a postgraduate student, with a successful academic history, and the world at my feet. But I face an epic personal struggle with a disease that threatens my mobility and my life chances, and I am scared about what this will mean for my future. Since diagnosis I have applied for government support so that I can buy walking aids, employ carers, adapt my home, and use taxis to attend hospital appointments - so that I don't become isolated and at risk. I was refused at first try, even told by the Job Centre advice line that it is now normal procedure to turn down a first application, and I await a tribunal which will take place in the summer, to prove that my needs are 'real' enough to be worthy. I am being taught that my disability means that I am to be presumed a fraudster and must remain dis-empowered and excluded until I can prove I am genuine. This is a total reversal of the philosophy that used to be at the heart of our society. This is what cuts mentality does.
 
I used to be a student union president and I studied law. I know my rights and I will fight for them. But what about the next person of the one in ten, what about the next of the 1.3 million whose access to society is sidelined? When identity and potential is ignored, facilities for self-education closed down, transport services canceled, how many will be excluded beyond view? We cannot let this happen.
 
I am marching from my armchair, to protest a structural adjustment policy akin to much of what the developing world has experienced over the last half of the last century; a removal of government subsidies in education, destruction of health and welfare services, decimation of access and advice services which support the excluded and incapacitated, which amounts to the most dramatic dismantling of the social justice framework since the second world war. I am part of a movement demanding an alternative.
 
Whilst between 250,000 and 500,000 are marching, more than 2,000 who can’t attend physically have committed to Armchair Activism, and this is just the beginning. The cuts are affecting those least likely to have the means and ability to be on the march, those whose voices are so often missing from the political dialogue - and this, the growing movement of virtual solidarity, is a chance for empowerment as well as change.
 
We are not fooled. We know this neo-liberal ideology. We didn't vote for it because we don't want it. Please learn from the anti-war march – we were right then, and we are right now. We say "reverse this policy before you destroy our society, please".

Armchair Army - More Information

This piece was written as a part of the Armchair Army virtual protest, which began on Saturday March 26th in solidarity with the TUC March for the Alternative in London. Thousands of people joined in with the virtual march, taking a step for the alternative - with armchair activism, in solidarity with the thousands of people marching, and the millions of people whose future is risked by irresponsible cuts to the social fabric of our society.

To find out more about the virtual protest, please visit these links:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115177001891619

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/stepforward

http://virtualprotest.org.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_146591818737668&notif_t=group_activity